[OT] Usenet to be shut down?

Daniel Mahoney wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:50:12 +1000, Yowie wrote:

I found this way too disturbing, and hope its a prank. Please,
someone, tell me its a prank.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-99...?tag=nefd.lede

Yowie

My reading is the the 3 ISP mentioned are essentially removing the alt
hierarchy from their own NNTP servers.

I don't anticipate this will have any effect on RPCA. It's kind of sad
that they're knuckling under, but nobody every accused big telecom
companies of having balls. I'm sure that the big Usenet players
(n.i.n, giganews, supernews, etc) will keep serving up the groups
that the others are deleting. And if anyone ever tries to block or
delete the rec.pets tree, then people with smaller servers (like me)
will just take up the slack.

Dan

You have to subscribe to a newsgroup server not just a news reader. Two
separate entities. We're now paying $2.95 a month for usenetmonster.com.
They give you 5 gigs of space a month, with 10 concurrent connections, which
means you can have 10 users on the same account at the same time. Once you
reach the 5 gig limit, you have to repay, BUT, if you don't use all 5 gigs
in a month, you get roll-overs.

http://www.usenetmonster.com/index.asp

Hope this helps somebody.

kili

"outsider" ...
"Yowie"
I found this way too disturbing, and hope its a prank. Please,
someone, tell me its a prank.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-99...?tag=nefd.lede

Yowie




While Mr Cuoma _is_ a piece of work I expect these providers are more than
happy to stop providing a costly service which a small portion of their
subscribers utilize. Let's see if they drop all of alt.

Let's hope not. I'm gettin hissed off.

kilikini wrote:
Yowie wrote:
I found this way too disturbing, and hope its a prank. Please,
someone, tell me its a prank.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-99...?tag=nefd.lede

Yowie

Not a prank. We just subscribed to usenetmonster.com, which takes
binaries if you want to look at animal pictures.

I use NIN mainly because it has a more reliable service and cuts out most of
the spam and crossposting. My ISP currently has a news server, but 95% of
the help desk folk don't even know its there, let alone know what to do if I
have trouble with my Usenet feed. Which is why I use NIN :-)

NIN doesn't carry binary groups, but still keeps a large section of the
alt.* heirachy.

I don't miss the binary groups, but can still find them if I want to access
them - I think there's a news-to-web server out there that is *only* the
binary groups.

As one of hte commentors in the above article said, the percent of total
child porn that goes through Usenet would be pathetically small comapred to
P2P and torrent services. Child Pornography is just the latest bogeyman that
people can't argue with without seeming somehow indecent themselves.

Yowie

On 12 Jun 2008 23:02:55 GMT, wrote:


Actually, I'm not sure if it's possible for an ISP to block individual
newsgroups. Don't they have to block the entire hierarchy that those
newsgroups are part of? On the other hand, I have occasionally asked my
ISP to add a newsgroup to the ones they provide access to, and they have
done so without adding any hierarchies. The only thing I'm sure of is
that I don't know what I'm talking about. Could a more knowledgeable
person please clear this up?? Thanks!

An ISP can configure its news server practically any way it wants: the
newsgroups supported, the maximum size of the articles permitted, the
number of articles retained, etc.

The news articles are stored on the ISP servers, and the alt.binaries
news groups particularly take up a lot of room and bandwidth. It is
an expensive service for apparently fewer and fewer customers.

Bud

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:50:12 +1000, Yowie wrote:

I found this way too disturbing, and hope its a prank. Please, someone,
tell me its a prank.


It's not a prank, but ordinarily it wouldn't even be news either. Somebody
is making political capital out of something ISPs in general consider to
be a drag on their profits. usenet is an expensive service: it requires
hardware and bandwidth, much of both of which are actually wasted, and it
provides no revenue (that's the main point: it's a service that produces
no income). Three of my last three ISPs, including the current one, have
dropped usenet, either all at once or in pieces. The move from free
usenet from your ISP to subscriber funded usenet services has been under
way for a number of years.

--

T.E.D. ) MST (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).

Whew, that had me worried for a bit. Thanks Dan.
"Daniel Mahoney" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:50:12 +1000, Yowie wrote:

I found this way too disturbing, and hope its a prank. Please, someone,
tell
me its a prank.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-99...?tag=nefd.lede

Yowie

My reading is the the 3 ISP mentioned are essentially removing the alt
hierarchy from their own NNTP servers.

I don't anticipate this will have any effect on RPCA. It's kind of sad
that they're knuckling under, but nobody every accused big telecom
companies of having balls. I'm sure that the big Usenet players (n.i.n,
giganews, supernews, etc) will keep serving up the groups that the others
are deleting. And if anyone ever tries to block or delete the rec.pets
tree, then people with smaller servers (like me) will just take up the
slack.

Dan

"William Hamblen" wrote in message
...
On 12 Jun 2008 23:02:55 GMT, wrote:


Actually, I'm not sure if it's possible for an ISP to block individual
newsgroups. Don't they have to block the entire hierarchy that those
newsgroups are part of? On the other hand, I have occasionally asked my
ISP to add a newsgroup to the ones they provide access to, and they have
done so without adding any hierarchies. The only thing I'm sure of is
that I don't know what I'm talking about. Could a more knowledgeable
person please clear this up?? Thanks!

An ISP can configure its news server practically any way it wants: the
newsgroups supported, the maximum size of the articles permitted, the
number of articles retained, etc.

Yep, they surely can, if they want to be bothered. It's no different,
really, from an email administrator putting rules in place on a mail server.
Or to put it simplistically, us as individuals using a killfile

The news articles are stored on the ISP servers, and the alt.binaries
news groups particularly take up a lot of room and bandwidth. It is
an expensive service for apparently fewer and fewer customers.

Bud

Thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning *binaries*!! Because the
article (and the intention of blocking Usenet access) is to eliminate
*PHOTOS* containing child pornography*. There's no reason to get rid of any
non-binary newsgroups such as RPCA, which doesn't support embedded images,
flashing emoticons, cute little dancing pigs and all that happy crap anyway!

In fact, if these ISP's were smart (ha!), rather than knuckle under to the
Attorney General of ONE STATE (New York) they could stimulate the U.S.
economy by hiring people to monitor (NOT in f*ing INDIA) and delete
objectionable (child porn) posts. They could have teams working with the
U.S. Attorney's office and the equivalent in other countries to trace the
source of these posts and go after the *individuals* responsible for the
posts. But no, the knee-jerk reaction instead is, as the ACLU spokesman
stated, "...taking a sledgehammer to an ant." I admire the intent but I
despise (most) politicians! Is he up for re-election?! Who died and made
Andrew Cuomo the god of Usenet?

*I'd be willing to bet there's more illegal photo content on the many
Web-based unmoderated "forums" on Yahoo, Google, etc. they could go after
than there is on all of Usenet.

Jill

"jmcquown" wrote in message
. ..

"William Hamblen" wrote in message
...
On 12 Jun 2008 23:02:55 GMT, wrote:


Actually, I'm not sure if it's possible for an ISP to block individual
newsgroups. Don't they have to block the entire hierarchy that those
newsgroups are part of? On the other hand, I have occasionally asked my
ISP to add a newsgroup to the ones they provide access to, and they have
done so without adding any hierarchies. The only thing I'm sure of is
that I don't know what I'm talking about. Could a more knowledgeable
person please clear this up?? Thanks!

An ISP can configure its news server practically any way it wants: the
newsgroups supported, the maximum size of the articles permitted, the
number of articles retained, etc.

Yep, they surely can, if they want to be bothered. It's no different,
really, from an email administrator putting rules in place on a mail
server. Or to put it simplistically, us as individuals using a killfile

The news articles are stored on the ISP servers, and the alt.binaries
news groups particularly take up a lot of room and bandwidth. It is
an expensive service for apparently fewer and fewer customers.

Bud

Thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning *binaries*!! Because the
article (and the intention of blocking Usenet access) is to eliminate
*PHOTOS* containing child pornography*. There's no reason to get rid of
any non-binary newsgroups such as RPCA, which doesn't support embedded
images, flashing emoticons, cute little dancing pigs and all that happy
crap anyway!

In fact, if these ISP's were smart (ha!), rather than knuckle under to the
Attorney General of ONE STATE (New York) they could stimulate the U.S.
economy by hiring people to monitor (NOT in f*ing INDIA) and delete
objectionable (child porn) posts. They could have teams working with the
U.S. Attorney's office and the equivalent in other countries to trace the
source of these posts and go after the *individuals* responsible for the
posts. But no, the knee-jerk reaction instead is, as the ACLU spokesman
stated, "...taking a sledgehammer to an ant." I admire the intent but I
despise (most) politicians! Is he up for re-election?! Who died and made
Andrew Cuomo the god of Usenet?


Andrew is a pretty known quantity here, and no he's NOT up for re-election.
But he's always been a complex, moving target. He has a lot of talent-- a
good mind, and very good with people-- but he's impulsive and has a temper.
He's always been under the shadow of his brilliant father, former NY
governor Mario Cuomo, and he has always been a little crazy to make his mark
in the world.

He was an odd duck for the position of AG, since he has a shady past.
Rumor has it that his dad -- who is as straight an arrow as you get-- would
not run for President when he seemed like the last hope of the Democratic
party-- because of the risk of exposing *Andrew's* shenanigans. In
essence, Andrew might be indirectly to blame for eight and more years of
Clintons.

He's a power-hungry egomaniac, but an idealistic one who basically means
well. He was a fine housing secretary. But he is in love with the idea of
doing BIG THINGS. It rankles him that he probably will not ever hold a
really high office, so he wants to do BIG THINGS in the offices he holds.
So this is not really a surprsing thing for him, in its scope of conception,
and in its flawed conception.

Theresa, Stinky and Dante

How would that affect those of us who subscribe to newsgroups through
servers like "NewsGuys"? And those whose ISP is NOT a telecom company,
and not "broadband"?

For now, it won't. In the future, who knows?

Personally, I object to ANY curtailment of free speech on the Internet.

I agree.

While child porn is deplorable and sickening, it's not the huge monster
thing that the media like to make it out to be. It's entirely possible to
surf the net a lot and never get exposed to it. The last time I stumbled
upon any kiddy porn was back in the 90's. Of course I don't go looking for
it; I suppose if you went Googling for it you might be able to find it
without too much difficulty, but that's true for most any subject.

The key to safe enjoyment of Usenet is to control your browsing habits.
Don't want your kids to look at Usenet porn? Then install filters on YOUR
computer to keep YOUR kids off inappropriate sites. Don't know how? Then
either 1) accept it, 2) learn how, or 3) pay someone to do it for you.
Having your legislators pressure the ISPs to remove newsgroups YOU don't
approve of is not the way to do it.

I can't express how sick I am of having people try to enforce THEIR
morality by means of legislation. I have my own ideas of morality and
ethics, and to me they're just as valid as the next guy's. Having the next
guy's morality imposed on me just because he contributed more money to a
politician's re-election campaign ****es me off. Hugely. Indescribably.
And such perversions as the Patriot Act are just beyond description. There
aren't words adequate to describe how stupid, intrusive, invasive, and
criminal it is.

Yes DHS, I did say that. Again.

Oh geez, I read that article too. Well, maybe there goes my Pink Floyd
group maybe too. I just don't know.
Will it have any effect on rpcc I wonder?
This is totally nuts!!
Kyla

Nope, it won't have any effect on rpca or rpcc. If your PF group is under
the alt hierarchy, then yes, it will affect those people who access the
group from one of the weak-kneed ISPs.

But don't worry too much.

There are a lot of small guys out there, with their home Linux and FreeBSD
and OpenSolaris machines on DSL circuits and in colocations. When too many
of the big players fold up their tents and go home, we'll start running an
NNTP server on our home machines. Or, more to the point, those of us who
are already running NNTP servers at home will make them either publically
accessable, or available to select groups of friends and acquaintances.
Unless Big Brother dictates some extreme measures, there will always be a
backbone of Usenet servers available. Usenet originated as a loose network
of small machines; it might well return to that.

Dan